Faith of the Fallen (Sword of Truth 6)

Richard slumped down into a chair. His face sank into his hands, his fingers stabbed back into his hair. After a time, he looked up.

“What you wanted,” he said quietly.

“What I wanted?”

“My punishment.”

“Punishment?”

Richard nodded. “Brother Narev found out about the fine of twenty-two gold marks. He said I must have done something criminal to get that much money, and he sentenced me to make a statue for the grand entrance to the emperor’s palace.”

Nicci glanced down at the small thing on the table. “What is it?”

“A sundial. This is the ring with the times etched on it. The lightning bolt casts a shadow of the Creator’s Light on the ring to tell the time of day.”

“I still don’t understand. Why is it a sentence? You are a carver. That is your job.”

Richard shook his head. “I am to buy the stone out of my own money, and I am to carve this at night, on my own time, as my gift to the Order.”

“And why do you see this as what I wanted?”

Richard ran a finger down the lightning bolt, his eyes studying the statue. “You brought me here, to the Old World, because you wanted me to learn the errors of my ways. I have. I should have confessed to a crime and let them end it.”

Without thinking, Nicci reached across the table and put her hand over his. “No, Richard, that’s not what I wanted.”

He pulled his hand away.

Nicci pushed his bowl closer to him. “Eat, Richard. You need your strength.”

Without complaint, he did as she told him. A prisoner, doing as ordered. She hated to see him like this.

The spark was gone from his eyes, just as it had left her father’s eyes.

When he looked at the statue sitting in the center of their table, his eyes were dead. It was as if the life, the energy, the hope, was gone from him. When he was finished with his meal, he went without a word to his bed and lay down, facing away from her.

Nicci sat at the table, listening to the sputter of the lamp’s flame, watching Richard’s even breathing as he went to sleep.

It seemed his spirit was crushed. She had believed for so long that she would learn something valuable when he was pushed to such extremes. It appeared she had been wrong, that he had finally given up. She could learn nothing from him, now.

There was little left for her to do. Little reason to continue the whole thing. For a moment, she felt the crushing weight of her disappointment; then even that was gone.

Empty and unfeeling, Nicci collected the bowl and spoon and carried them to the wash bucket. She worked quietly, to let him sleep, as she resigned herself to returning to Jagang.

It wasn’t Richard’s fault he could teach her nothing; there was nothing more to life to learn. This was all there was. Her mother had been right.

Nicci took out the butcher knife and set it quietly on the table.

Richard had suffered enough.

It would be for the best.

Chapter 59

Nicci sat at the table, the knife under her fingers, forever. She watched his back. His chest slowly expanded with his breath of life, and sank again. There was time enough to slip the knife into his back, between his ribs, to pierce his heart.

There was time enough yet before dawn.

Death was so final. She wanted to watch him for a while. Nicci never tired of watching Richard.

After she did it, she wouldn’t be able to watch him anymore. He would be gone forever. With the damage the chimes had done to the worlds and their interconnection, she didn’t even know if a person’s soul could still go to the spirit world. She didn’t even know if the underworld still existed and if Richard’s spirit would go there, or if he would simply be…gone forever—if he and that which was his soul would simply cease to exist.

In her numb state, she had lost track of time.

When she glanced out the window that Richard had had installed with the money he had earned, she noticed that the sky had taken on the color of a week-old bruise.

Linked as she was to Kahlan, Nicci couldn’t accomplish the deed with her magic. As much as she abhorred the idea of it, and knowing how gruesome it would be, she had to use the sharp blade.

Nicci curled her fingers around the wooden handle of the stout knife. She wanted it to be quick. She couldn’t bear to think of him suffering. He had suffered enough in life, she didn’t want him to suffer in death, too.

He would struggle briefly, but then it would be over.

Richard abruptly rolled onto his back and then sat up. Nicci froze, still sitting in her chair. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Could she kill him when he was awake? Could she look into those eyes of his as she plunged the knife into his chest?

She would have to.

It was for the best.

Richard yawned and stretched. He sprang to his feet.

“Nicci. What are you doing? Haven’t you gone to bed?”

“I… I guess I fell asleep in the chair.”

“Oh, well, I—there it is. I need that.”

He snatched the knife out of her hand. “Mind if I borrow this? I need to use it. I’m afraid I’ll have to sharpen it for you later. I won’t have time before I have to leave. Can you make me something to eat? I’m in a hurry. I have to go see Victor before I start to work.”

Nicci was dumbfounded. He was suddenly revived. In the lamplight, and the faint dawn coming in the windows, he had that look in his eyes. He looked…resolute, determined.

“Yes, all right,” she said.

“Thanks,” he called over his shoulder while hurrying out the door.

“Where are you—?”

But he was gone. She decided he must be going out back to get some vegetables. But why would he need the big knife for that? She was confused, but she was revived, too. Richard seemed himself again.

Nicci pulled from the pantry some eggs she had been saving, along with an iron skillet, and hurried out back to the cooking hearth. The coals were still glowing from the cook fires of the evening before, providing a little light. She carefully fed in some small twigs and kindling, then stacked a bed of finger-thick branches on top. She simply set the iron skillet atop the wood as it caught, rather than set up the rack—eggs were quick.

As she waited for the skillet to get hot, she heard an odd scraping noise. In the nickering light of the fire, she didn’t see Richard in the garden. She couldn’t imagine where he had gone, or what he was up to. She broke the eggs into the hot skillet and tossed the shells in the compost bucket at the side of the hearth. With a wooden spoon she scrambled the eggs around as they cooked.

As Nicci stood, using her skirt to hold the hot handle of the skillet, she was surprised to see Richard coming out from behind the broad cooking hearth.

“Richard, what are you doing?”

“There are some loose bricks back here. I was just seeing to it before I went to work. I cleaned out the joints. I’ll bring some mortar home and fix it later.”

He pulled a handful of thick-bladed grass and used it as a potholder to take the skillet from her. With his other hand, he flipped the knife into the air, caught it by the point, and held the handle out to her. Nicci took the heavy knife, now scratched and dulled from scraping the bricks clean. He ate standing, using the wooden spoon.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Fine,” he said around a hot mouthful of eggs. “Why?”

Nicci gestured toward the house. “Well, last night…you seemed so…defeated.”

He frowned at her. “So, I’ve no right to feel sorry for myself now and again?”

“Well, yes, I suppose. But now…?”

“Now I’ve thought it over.”

“And…?”

“It’s to be my gift to the people, is it? I shall give the people a gift they need.”

“What are you talking about?”

Richard waved the wooden spoon. “Brothers Narev and Neal said this will be my

gift to the people, and so it shall be.” He shoveled more eggs into his mouth.

“So you are going to carve the statue they want?”

He was already running up the stairs before she had finished the question.

“I have to get the model of the statue and be off to work.”

Nicci raced after him up the stairs. He was still eating the eggs as he went. He stood in their room, peering down at the small statue on the table as he finished the eggs. She couldn’t make sense of it—he was smiling.

He set the skillet on the table and scooped up the model. “I’ll probably be home late. I have to get started on my penance for the Order, if I can. I may have to work all night.”